


Dreaming Awake

by SapphyreLily



Series: Sunlight Through A Glass Window [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Contemplative thoughts, Gen, OR IS IT, delusional talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa Week Day 6 - Dreams/Gold (Success/Triumph)</p><p>Is it delusional or is it normal to look upon things that others find awkward and weird, and find yourself being outrightly fascinated by them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming Awake

There are a million things I dream of.

Stars and comets and galaxies galore. The blue-indigo-purple of a clear night, bright enough to see the Milky Way, lighting up our sleepy neighbourhood with fairy dust from the sky.

It’s not real, it never is, but I can dream.

I look at the quiet beauty in the dust motes, in the summer sunlight streaming through my window. I see the way the golden light pours in like a syrupy waterfall, washing over the simple furniture of my room, lighting on things I’ve all but forgotten about.

A book assigned for reading in third year of middle school, a small plushie on my cupboard’s top. The haphazardly arranged pens in my stationary cup, the library books stacked neatly in the middle of my table. The fuzzy green carpet with the stain where Iwa-chan spilled his hot chocolate when we were five, because I had wanted his cup and shoved him when he wouldn’t hand it over. It’s a funny memory now, reduced to blurred images and downy carpet fuzz, little strands that run through my fingers when I'm being lazy and roll on the floor.

What else is there?

There’s beauty in the crash of waves on a beach, the salty waves rolling in at low tide, the booming thunder they make at high tide. I’m not sure if the sea is more beautiful on a clear day or a stormy one, if it’s calmer at sunrise or midday.

The waves are a cute constant, ripples you see far out, before they creep closer and closer and pounce on your unsuspecting toes, washing them with wet. You can hear them laugh as they recede, the _shh-shh_ as the water drags over the sand, the tickle they leave between your toes.

The sand, too, is a wonder.

Grainy or fluffy, rough or smooth, do you sink in or are you held up, is it damp or wet or dry. So curious, the sand, the itty-bitty bits of broken shell and rotting sealife, the scrape against your soles and how it sticks between your foot phalanges.

It smells wonderful too, with the scent of the sea.

Like how the clean salt smell rolls in with the electrical metallic bite of a storm, or the delightful briny rot scent that comes with decomposing shellfish. It’s kind of repulsive, but also addictive, a kind of fragrance that you can only ever find at the beach, or if you’re lucky, through an exposed manhole cover after the rains wash through the sewers.

Paper is beautiful.

Smooth, thick, white paper, processed so finely that you can reflect the sun off of it. Rough, worn, recycled paper, mashed up and pulpy to soft and oddly coloured. There’s something about paper, about the torn innards of trees, spread out and dried for your use. Something about how it is used for so many things – from drawing to writing to wrapping and tearing. Yes, I said tearing. Tearing paper is a great form of stress relief.

Have I mentioned pens? Sleek, beautiful pens, with their coloured inks. Bright, shiny mechanical pencils in all hues of the rainbow, sitting easily in your hand and gliding smoothly via the lead tongue it pokes out.

Then there’s fabric.

Soft cotton and scratchy polyester, itchy wool and fake cashmere. I love walking in shops just for the clothes, sliding my fingers over the selection in the racks to feel the difference in their material smoothness, softness.

Crinkly lace and thick velvet, short furry swede and ticklish false feathers. Satin is smooth and silk is cool, but nothing beats the softness of cotton when it is finely processed, wound tightly in a close mesh that will become a shirt or shorts.

Can you tell I’m biased? But I do so love walking among clothes and judging by their appearance which will be soft or not. I am oft disappointed, but the brushing of fabric against my fingertips makes them tingle with a special warmth, a unique joy that I can find no place else.

I want to be a seamstress, sometimes. But then there are so many other things vying for my attention, and I can’t possibly disappoint every other profession waiting for me, can I?

There’s a certain _something_ about leaves and nature.

I don’t like touching nature by itself, can’t stand the dirt and cold and damp under my fingernails and on my fingertips, in between my toes where it dries to a film. I’m okay with nature if I’m bundled up with sturdy shoes and a fluffy jacket, where I can’t touch the ground and the icky bits that might get to me.

I like the city, the concrete buildings reaching to the sky, the little sidewalks with their pedestrian and bicycle paths, the convenience stores on every block and the shiny glass on the side of buildings. The city makes me anonymous, just another name, just another face in the crowd, nobody of importance, nobody to remember for long.

I don’t like being forgotten.

I mean that, among friends. I have a huge presence, I know, but sometimes people do talk over me, especially when I have something important to say, and I’m left flapping my mouth like a fish, words lost when I come up for air. It’s kind of frustrating, but not really, and also infuriating, because I thought they were supposed to care about me.

People, it seems, let you down easily.

Or I’m just selfish. Maybe a little of both.

I want credit for work well done, lots and lots and lots of credit, beaming smiles and pats on the head, hard back slaps and an assurance that _you did wonderful_.

I’m a really needy person, it seems.

But in the end, all of these are just dreams, and my reality is a lot harsher than that.

Yes, I am needy. Yes, I see beauty, because who doesn’t?

But it is a _no_ I say when they ask me if I dream, because when they say _dream_ , they mean _hallucinate_.

I’m not quite that stupid. Not yet. I can see their prying eyes, their not-so-subtle extended ears. I can tell who’s lying and who’s not. I can tell who is on my side, who will appreciate my addled eyes and the lush grace they see.

Let me tell you, the list is not long.

Iwa-chan loves me, and he thinks my delusions are because of the lack of sleep or the overwork in practice. He doesn’t know I dream of him too, with his slanted green eyes and spiky soft hair, his sculpted muscles and sharp, sharp mind. If he knew I saw him dusted with pixie dust, a time where we went exploring Neverland together, he would scoff. He doesn’t remember. Not the pretty, pretty parts of our childhood, not the beauty laid bare before our once-innocent eyes.

Ah, has my list ended? What a pity, I thought it was longer.

But as the ink flows from my pen to cause these swirls and curls and dips and rises in my carefully drawn words, I know I am exposing myself to the world. A world that does not understand how I am dreaming awake, how I can reach out and touch the dancing dust motes that nobody stops to appreciate.

It is my greatest success, my crowning victory, to have walked and talked nonsense and yet made sense, to have seen devastating beauty and survived, to have fallen in love with so many things that I’m not sure my heart has space for more.

Oh, there’s the knock. It must be Iwa-chan, come to collect me for school.

I don’t think I need to mention volleyball, how beautiful and swift it is, like a predator and prey, but with a ball the size of my head instead of just bare fists. A ball made of leather and stained with scarlet and pearl and emerald, or the other variety with ocean blue and sunshine paste.

Knee guards with their squishy soft pads and constricting bodies, bruises blooming along my arms when I receive poorly. My bone coloured knee support, tight and choking but oh, does it do its job! I don’t feel my meniscus tear as badly when I have it on as when I don’t, and it makes walking as easy as being pulled on puppet strings.

Look, the sun is just rising, its maple syrup beams staining my floor and walls and ceiling gold. It’s breathtaking.

Ah, the knocking is now a pounding. I should go tell Iwa-chan to calm down.

Till next time, my weathered friend, my pages of old ramblings, my aged and youthful self, locked away in a prison of synthetic liquid and plant innards.

I forget who I am sometimes, and you remind me that I can act sane, but I am still, ultimately, crazy.

Maybe Mom shouldn’t have dropped me so much when I was a baby, hmm?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where I was going with this, but it was fun to write.


End file.
